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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29985594">memory-bound</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/scully_dubois/pseuds/scully_dubois'>scully_dubois</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The X-Files</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, a trip down memory lane, and hope for the future</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:54:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,792</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29985594</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/scully_dubois/pseuds/scully_dubois</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Set between Rm9sbG93ZXJz &amp; My Struggle IV, Scully moves back into the Unremarkable House after her smart home burns down and returns to an age-old ritual: coloring her hair.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fox Mulder &amp; Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>memory-bound</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Lamp light casts shadows on the wall as Scully unpacks in a place she never thought she’d find herself again: the master bedroom she and Mulder shared for almost a decade. She lays her remaining clothes on the tribal-patterned bedspread and smirks at how little the room has changed. She expected to be put up in the guest room and was perfectly fine with that. They had rarely gotten any use out of it--she figured an inhabitant would do it some good. Imagine her shock, then, when Mulder told her he hadn’t slept in “their” room since she left. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That the room was all hers.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It shouldn’t have surprised her that after a decade of a bed, he returned to what he knew upon losing what he had known. He swapped the couch he slept on for seven years for a Barcalounger. </span>
  <em>
    <span>An old man needs his amenities,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he joked while showing her its heat and massage functions. And she felt a gnawing in the pit of her stomach, the mark of a fool.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She salvaged what she could from the fire, but most of her Bethesda things were ruined. That soulless smart house was never worth its automated thermostat system, let alone any of its other data mines disguised as gizmos. Mulder hated it--</span>
  <em>
    <span>hated it,</span>
  </em>
  <span> like, wouldn’t step foot in it, and if she’s being honest, that was the only selling point for her: the shelter it offered from his incessant search for truth &amp; his unsatisfiable conscience. This was back when she felt like that was something she needed to get away from, of course. She had wanted to </span>
  <em>
    <span>settle</span>
  </em>
  <span> somewhere and mean it. Now, she realizes they were settled all along. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She rests a pile of folded clothes in the crook of her arm and pulls open her old dresser. She envisioned cobwebs--maybe even a whole family of spiders--in there, but instead, a ratty New York Knicks t-shirt greets her. And a Spaceship Earth one under that, and a Wile E. Coyote one under that. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Her holy trinity of Mulder t-shirts.</span>
  </em>
  <span> She refused to take them when she left, though he insisted. And in protest, he hadn’t worn them. She knows this instinctively, though the lack of laundry scent confirms it. They’ve been waiting in this drawer all along, captives to Mulder’s fantasy that one day she would open it again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully squeezes her eyes shut, slips the pile in next to the shirts, slams the drawer, and grabs her toiletries bag off the bed, striding into the bathroom. She can’t dwell...</span>
  <em>
    <span>she can’t.</span>
  </em>
  <span> She’s learned by now that regret is a state of mind that freezes her up, and there’s no being frozen, not any more. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Unzipping the bag, she lines her various products along the counter. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Age-defying this, anti-aging that...</span>
  </em>
  <span>sunscreen is really the only thing that’s done her any good. That, and hair dye. She keeps the others around for show. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Speaking of...she pokes at her roots, scouring the mirror for signs that yes, she could theoretically be a grandma--and she can’t say for certain that she isn’t--but to her knowledge, she’s not, and as long as no one calls her Grandma, she won’t accept the title.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She won’t accept the gray hairs, either. One day, sure, but not yet. Mulder’s not even gone gray yet, and he has years on her. She’s told him that he would look great, and that the </span>
  <em>
    <span>silver fox</span>
  </em>
  <span> nickname would be nothing short of perfection, but he swears that he just hasn’t lost his “natural luster” yet, that he’ll embrace the gray when (</span>
  <em>
    <span>if!)</span>
  </em>
  <span> it comes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully’s not been so lucky, though it doesn’t show. She’s been coloring her hair every three weeks since she was twenty-eight to keep the ravishing red. She’ll never forget when Mulder realized it wasn’t her natural color...the way his eyes widened as he moved between her legs…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not as if he </span>
  <em>
    <span>didn’t know.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Her mousy auburn had been on full display when they first met, and yet he’d gotten so used to seeing her as she is that it slipped his mind that she hadn’t always been that way. And once they moved in together--in this very bathroom, actually--he loved to help her with the coloring process, was as fascinated by it as the prospect of alien-human hybrids. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She chooses the tube of Rock it Like a Redhead dye from her product line-up, looks at her reflection. It’s been five--no, six--</span>
  <em>
    <span>nearing seven</span>
  </em>
  <span>--years since she performed this ritual in this room. She glances down, and sure enough, the tile still bears a rust-colored stain from one of her sessions gone wrong. It makes her smile...she has a history here. </span>
  <em>
    <span>They</span>
  </em>
  <span> have a history here.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sighs. For old time’s sake, she might as well...she’s found herself thinking that a lot lately. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her old robe--her usual attire for the occasion--fell victim to the fire, but she’s got a good substitute in mind. She pads back into the bedroom and plucks the Wile E. Coyote shirt from the drawer. It’s black, hopefully that will hide any stains. Her slacks are too damn expensive to risk an accident, so she briefly considers stripping to her panties before settling on a pair of gym shorts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her get-up in place, she grabs a few clips from her bag and pins her hair up in four sections. This is one of the reasons she got her chop; her long hair was sexy, but it was a bitch trying to cover all those layers. Plus, Mulder is fond of “the Scully shag” as he calls it, though she corrects him every time (it’s not a shag Mulder, it’s a </span>
  <em>
    <span>bob!)</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It reminds him of their firsts, she imagines. It’s almost as if the longer her hair got, the further apart they drifted. And once they were okay again, it was imperative that she bear her neck to him...show him the place where his lips should land.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She decides to stand in the shower (water off, of course) so any mess can be rinsed away. She wonders, suddenly, if the square mirror they used to keep is still suctioned to the glass interior. It’ll be hard to do this alone if it’s not. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She peeks in, and it’s not there, and that must be the only thing in this house Mulder </span>
  <em>
    <span>has</span>
  </em>
  <span> moved. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Figures. </span>
  </em>
  <span>She slips off her shoes and grabs the applicator and dye tube. She’ll do the best she can, then use the bathroom mirror to make any touch-ups.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully steps into the shower. Its characteristic lemon scent is gone, and that makes her sad. It used to be a welcome change from the antiseptic hospital smell she dealt with all day. Wielding her tools, she starts at her roots, spreading the dye along her scalp with expert precision. Surely this counts as a workout--it takes a lot of energy to hold your arms over your head for this long. Will her Fitbit calculate how many calories she’s burning, she wonders? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s just started a new strand when a gentle rap echoes through the wall. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Scully?” Mulder’s voice rings from outside the bedroom. She pulled the door slightly shut when she entered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come in!” she calls. “In the bathroom.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hears footsteps in the adjacent room, then a hesitant breath as Mulder pauses at the doorway. “Are you decent?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully looks down at herself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>What a picture.</span>
  </em>
  <span> “I’m in a Wile E. Coyote t-shirt and gym shorts. Does that answer your question?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mulder shuffles in, smirking at the sight of her through the open shower door. “What are you doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She points to the crown of her head--which is already well within his field of vision--so she’s not sure why he needed to ask the question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I see </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Mulder concedes, “but I mean, why are you hunched over in here like you’re hoping to grow a third arm?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully shrugs. “A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s just as lame as ‘boys will be boys,’ and you know it,” he counters, remembering a spirited lecture she once gave him on the misogynist undertones of the phrase. Scully smirks. They had that conversation</span>
  <em>
    <span> years</span>
  </em>
  <span> ago...post-William, pre-Bahamas. She’s surprised that it stuck with him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She tilts her chin in a way that makes Mulder certain she’d have her hands on her hips if they weren’t occupied. “What do you suggest?” she challenges.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let me help you,” he proposes before she can launch a protest. His sneaker’s rubber sole meets the shower tile as he slips in beside her. The wall is cold against her elbow as she scoots back to make room for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m fine. I’ve been doing this on my own for years, and I was long before you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But now you have me,” he professes. “Here. Right now,” he clarifies, not meaning to label their as-yet undefined relationship status. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their eyes meet, and Scully’s hit with the last time the two of them were in here--her legs around his waist, his hands sliding through her hair, droplets that couldn’t be placed as shower water, sweat, or tears. Her spine straightens against the very wall where she was pinned. Times change, yet they don’t. History repeats itself in a slightly different key. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When I was younger, I did this because I liked the color,” she tells him, finishing a section and lowering her hands. “Now, I do it out of necessity. It’s sad, Mulder.” She juts her lower lip out in a faux pout. “We’re getting </span>
  <em>
    <span>old.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He would hug her, but he’d mess up her hair and it would be a whole thing. “Hey, I’ll be pushing your wheelchair with my wheelchair, remember?” he says, taking her slip into sentimentality as permission.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully nods, the delicate memories of years past bringing a slight frown to her face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you do me a favor?” she asks, raising to her tiptoes, then lowering again. Her eyes twinkle. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She offers him the tube of dye, looks up at him with a smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> “Can you get right here?” She points to a spot right above her temple, one she could definitely reach herself if she wanted to. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mulder admires her. <em>His woman</em>, b</span>
  <em>
    <span>ack in his old t-shirt and all.</span>
  </em>
  <span> He plants his lips on her temple, breathing her in. No matter what she says about aging or being old, he’ll never believe her. She is as she was back then: the only semblance of peace he’s ever known. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He pulls away to meet her gaze, his voice warm and smooth. “Is that about where you want it?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Scully grins. “Yes, that’s perfect.”</span>
</p>
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